The U.S. men’s basketball team dropped out of the No. 1 spot in FIBA’s world rankings for the first time since 2010.
Spain displaced the U.S. by a slim margin in the latest rankings update thanks in large part to its EuroBasket title in September.
“It’s not exactly a new title and it probably can’t be maintained for too long, but it’s something so unique, prestigious and historic that I feel tremendously proud of everyone who … have contributed to it,” Spain coach Sergio Scariolo tweeted, according to an Associated Press translation.
FIBA rankings are calculated using all games played by 164 national teams in top official FIBA competitions and their qualifiers over an eight-year period. Added weight is given to more recent games, strength of opponent and strength of competition.
While the U.S. won its fourth consecutive Olympic title in Tokyo, it also lost in the quarterfinals of the 2019 World Cup (which Spain won) and placed third at the AmeriCup in September.
The U.S. did not have qualification for the 2023 World Cup or the 2024 Olympics at stake at the AmeriCup, a tournament for North and South American nations, and used mostly G League players and no NBA players.
Argentina was the last country other than the U.S. to be ranked No. 1, most recently in 2010. The Americans took the top spot back after winning the 2010 World Championship.
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No es propiamente un nuevo titulo y probablemente no pueda mantenerse durante demasiado tiempo, pero es algo tan unico, prestigioso e historico que me siento tremendamente orgulloso de tod@s l@s que, desde la U12 a la Absoluta, han contribuido a ello. #LaFamilia pic.twitter.com/pYPrgimea5
— Sergio Scariolo (@sergioscariolo) November 18, 2022
Mikaela Shiffrin became the first woman to win the first two races of the Alpine skiing World Cup season in 29 years, taking back-to-back slaloms this weekend and bouncing back from her worst string of slalom results to end last season.
Shiffrin followed her 75th World Cup victory on Saturday with another one on Sunday in Levi, Finland. She won consecutive races for the first time since 2019 and extended her record for the most wins for any man or woman in a single discipline with her 49th in slalom.
Shiffrin won Sunday with the fastest times in both runs, prevailing by .28 of a second over Swiss Wendy Holdener. Olympic champion Petra Vlhova of Slovakia was third.
“I was actually really surprised,” Shiffrin said. “After the first run, if I was going to bet on someone, I was actually going to bet on Petra, and then maybe Wendy [and German Lena Duerr] next. … If I had a list, I would be fourth.”
She will go for her 50th World Cup slalom victory next Sunday in Killington, Vermont after the season’s first giant slalom on Saturday (both on NBC Sports and Peacock).
ALPINE SKIING: Full Results | Broadcast Schedule
Shiffrin, who trails Lindsey Vonn by six wins for the career women’s record across all disciplines, became the first man or woman to win the first two races of the season since Bode Miller in 2004 (and 2003). The last woman to do so was Austrian Anita Wachter in 1993.
A caveat is that most seasons do not start with two races in the same discipline, let alone at the same venue and on back-to-back days.
Nevertheless, Shiffrin eased doubts coming out of how her slalom season ended last winter — skiing out early in the first run at the Olympics, then ninth- and eighth-place finishes in the last two World Cups. That marked her worst string of slalom results since she was a World Cup rookie as a 17-year-old.
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And just like that, @MikaelaShiffrin sweeps the weekend with back to back World Cup wins in Levi 🙌#StifelUSAlpineTeam pic.twitter.com/FAufEuS0WW
— U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team (@usskiteam) November 20, 2022
Mikaela Shiffrin won the season-opening slalom for her 75th career World Cup victory and broke the female record she shared with Lindsey Vonn for the most podiums in a single discipline.
“It’s a bit hard to explain what it means because it’s a pretty big number, actually,” said Shiffrin, who is third all-time in World Cup wins behind Ingemar Stenmark (86) and Vonn (82). “So many years I’ve been racing now. Every single race that I won had some special meaning. I don’t think, as a human, I can feel that many emotions at one time. Actually, I don’t think about 75. I just think about this one.”
Shiffrin, third after the first of two runs in Levi, Finland, had the best second run to prevail by .16 of a second over Swede Anna Swenn Larsson combining times from both runs.
ALPINE SKIING: Full Results | Broadcast Schedule
The winner’s prize in Levi is a reindeer. Shiffrin “won” her fifth reindeer, though the animals stay in Europe.
German Lena Duerr, the first run leader, was last to go in the second run. She still held a lead of .38 over Shiffrin halfway through her second run, but lost nearly a second to the next split and finished in fourth place behind Olympic champion Petra Vlhova of Slovakia.
“Everybody’s like, ‘Who’s better, Petra or Mikaela?’” Shiffrin said of Vlhova, who in the last Olympic cycle overtook Shiffrin as the top-ranked slalom skier. “To be honest, I think when we both push on our very, very best skiing, you actually don’t know who’s going to win. I think that’s what makes it exciting. I would like to say I’m always going to win if I’m skiing the best, but it’s not really true. It’s just who pushes a little bit harder and who hits the timing exactly right.”
Shiffrin, who ended last season with her worst run of slalom results since she was a 17-year-old rookie (DNF at the Olympics, ninth, eighth), earned her 67th World Cup slalom podium. Vonn made 66 downhill podiums. Stenmark holds the overall record with 81 slalom podiums, plus 72 giant slalom podiums.
Shiffrin’s 48 World Cup slalom wins are most for any Alpine skier in any discipline.
She has started 100 career slaloms among the Olympics, world championships and World Cup and won 53 of them, all in her last 87 starts.
The women race another slalom in Levi on Sunday.
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Best. In. The. World.🔥 Mikaela Shiffrin wins today’s World Cup in Levi to secure World Cup win number 75 AND to become the record holder for the most World Cup podiums in a single discipline🏆
Highlights (free) are available NOW on https://t.co/Y7ZlIbcGro🙌#stifelusalpineteam pic.twitter.com/N7tsDYLPFY
— U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team (@usskiteam) November 19, 2022
